Welcome to Pine & Mercer!

May 08, 2017

Our story is one of adventure and perseverance.

My husband Devesh, a former management consultant and a budding entrepreneur, worked with his uncle on developing Silk Story, a home furnishings brand, and I taught high-school science in Alpharetta, GA.

We decided to take a sabbatical from work to travel around Asia to explore new places, cultures and ideas. While in China, we went to the Canton Fair, one of the world’s largest trade shows, looking for new product ideas. We walked through the exhibits for 3 days straight, but none of the products truly inspired us.

IDEA + RESEARCH

We returned home to Atlanta and realized that men’s game day and collegiate apparel wardrobe is very limited (in terms of both design and versatility). The market is flooded with t-shirts, polos, and jerseys. There are also casual shirts that have busy patterns – picnic blanket “checkered” or the referee “stripes” – and are made with inferior quality fabrics.

We wanted to create something simple, classy and versatile. Something that allowed guys to proudly flaunt their team’s colors not just at the stadium, but also at a party or even casual Fridays at work. We finally had an idea we were inspired to work on.

DEVELOPMENT

We focused on three things:

Aesthetics

We enlisted the help of European fashion designers to help bring our ideas to life. After over a dozen iterations we finally arrived on designs that incorporate some of your favorite teams’ colors in a subtle, but stylish manner. Our shirts are made in a classic cut, which is designed for casual versatility. It features a slightly shorter tail offering an option to wear it untucked.

Comfort

It was important that we picked a high-performance shirt fabric. We wanted to go with a natural fiber and after considering several options in cotton and cotton-blends, we selected a luxurious linen and cotton combination for our shirts. It’s great for the summer and fall weather. It’s easy-care and keeps you cool, yet looking smart.

Value for Money

We decided we wanted to deliver our products directly to our customers. By being online only, we eliminate brick-and-mortar expenses and pass on these savings to you.

After multiple rounds of samples, we were finally able to pass our own Litmus Test – would we buy and use it ourselves? And the answer was a resounding yes!

Neither of us had a background in fashion and it often felt like we were drinking out of a fire-hose. There is so much we learned along the way about the textile industry in general and about fabrics, weaves, and shirt styles among other things. We are excited to share this knowledge with you through our blog.

After working on the shirts for the last four months we’re finally ready to launch. And we are so excited! We’ll get our first batch of shirts in August and can’t wait to get them in your hands.

Until then, we would love to hear your memories of dressing up for game days or any special game day traditions you may have. We want to be connected to you, our customers, and we want you to feel a part of our journey and brand.

We can’t wait to hear from you! Please subscribe to our newsletter – we have plenty more stories to share. We promise they are not going to be as long. :)

It takes a village to build a business

There are several people we want to thank for helping us get to this point.

Samira – our creative head and designer extraordinaireThank you for bringing color and vibrancy to our brand and for leading the creative process.

Phillip Sloane (Mr. Bud) – one of our key advisorsThanks Mr. Bud for helping us launch this collection. We could not have done this without your encouragement. Thanks for all the time you spent with us patiently listening to us and discussing ideas, illustrations, samples, improvements, and changes.

Anastasia and Dorin – our textile and fashion designersThank you for helping us take this from concept to an actual product. We appreciate all your help refining the designs and creating patterns, and tech packs. We enjoyed working with you and look forward to collaborating on other projects.

Adi, Aditi and Kavin – our siblings and advisors (and initial models)Thank you for being a sounding board and for all the introductions. We really appreciate all your help!

Our Parents, Uncles Arun and Ajay, and FriendsThank you for standing by us and always encouraging us (and for letting us stay with you for weeks at a time). We love you and wouldn’t have made it here without you!